Book Review: Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You!
by Uffe Ravnskov, MD PhD.Fat and cholesterol good for your?? Why its preposterous I tell you! And if this wasn't such a serious and important topic it might be worthwhile to spend a good deal of time simply on the reaction of mainstream medicine to Dr. Ravnskov's positions. To point out how this medical doctor, nephrologist and PhD could not get an English language publisher for his first book on the topic,
The Cholesterol Myths until Sally Fallon in the alternative medicine field published it through her own company. How, despite being literally burned on a Finnish talk show, the original book was in such demand that it was selling often selling for well over 100 dollars for a used copy until the publication of the current book. Even with the publication of
Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You! which covers and expands upon the material in the first book, used paper back copies of
The Cholesterol Myths sell for over twenty dollars and new copies around $40.
The topic of heart disease is a serious one, however, and rather then spend more time on the reaction to these writings it is necessary to try and at least scratch the surface of what Dr. Ranvskov is actually saying. This is not so easy in that the numerous chapters are wide ranging, controversial and generally include some 30 - 70 references a piece. While it has become more fashionable recently to question the cholesterol lowering campaign, to my knowledge, even to the present no one has put together such a well-referenced, well organized and cogent critique of the cholesterol lowering campaign as Dr. Ravnskov. Personally, this was the first book I read which led me to begin to question much of the conventional medical wisdom I had been taught in medical school and beyond. If cholesterol lowering for heart disease may be in error, what other precepts of modern medicine might not be equally idolatrous? I also suspected when I first heard of this book, that despite the author's credentials it would almost certainly be laughably bad, well I was in for a surprise.